The Cardinals had a 77-84 record in 2025, but it wasn’t all bad. Those of us who stayed with the bird-watching hobby all season overlooked or underrated several performances. Or maybe we didn’t make a timely note about the positive aspects of a guy’s season that should have received more attention.
It’s kind of like a “Hey, he did better than we thought” thing.
With that in mind…
I made a list!
ALEC BURLESON: This talented left-handed hitter had a swell 2025 in every way. His defense improved. He began to punish lefty pitchers for the first time in the majors. He set career-best marks in a season for batting average (.290) OBP (.343), slugging (.459), OPS (.801) and OPS+ (125.) You probably knew most of that already. So why do I say Burly was even better than we thought?
I was looking at his all-purpose, all-situation all-direction and all-platoon related batting averages. Burleson’s consistency was absolutely remarkable.
– .271 vs. lefties and .296 against righties.
– .284 against starting pitchers and .299 against relievers.
– .277 with the bases empty, .305 with men on base, and .277 with runners in scoring position, .310 in late-close situations.
– .293 in low-leverage situations, .276 in medium-leverage, and a fabulous .341 in high-leverage tests.
– .288 with no outs in the inning, .291 with one out, .290 with two outs, and .284 when leading off the inning.
– .289 in day games, .290 in night games.
– .408 when pulling the ball, .324 up the middle and .311 to the opposite field.
– .307 against a defensive shift, .362 with no shift.
– .293 in the first half and .285 after the All-Star break.
– Burly batted .290 outdoors, .287 with an open roof, and .324 with the roof closed. (He had no games in a fixed dome.)
– Weather conditions? Yes. Bring it all on. He batted .282 in clear weather, .299 in cloudy weather, .333 in a mist, .333 during a thunderstorm, and held his own with a .250 average in the rain. Full disclosure: Burleson went 0 for 4 in a haze … but I don’t even know what the hell that means. Was the weather hazy, or was he hazy?
– Depending on the game, Burleson was slotted in the lineup from the No. 2 spot through the No. 8 spot. And in all seven places in the lineup, he didn’t have a batting average lower than .272.
Heard of the Burlington Coat Factory?
This man was the Burleson Coat Factory. He had it all covered.
MATTHEW LIBERATORE: I wrote a lot about him earlier this week. But here are a couple of notes about why I believe Libby was better than given credit for in 2025.
– The lefty had a better ERA (4.21) than rotation mate Sonny Gray (4.28).
– Among MLB starting pitchers aged 25 or younger, Liberatore was one of only eight to pitch at least 140 innings. And the only starting pitchers in that group to have a better fielding independent ERA than Liberatore (4.03) were Paul Skenes (2.36) and Bryan Woo (3.47).
WILLSON CONTRERAS: I don’t know if he’s appreciated as much as he should be. Since becoming a Cardinal in 2023, Contreras has pounded his way into a fairly select group of hitters – though I suspect the bizarrely antagonistic Contreras Deniers would laugh at that claim.
But I like facts – forgive me! – so…
Over the past three seasons only 19 hitters have put together this statistical thread:
- .350 on-base percentage or higher.
- .459 slugging percentage or higher.
- .817 OPS or higher.
- 127 adjusted OPS or better.
- 55 or more homers.
In alphabetical order, here’s the list of the 19 hitters:
Mookie Betts, Willson Contreras, Rafael Devers, Yandy Diaz, Freddie Freeman, Vlad Guerrero Jr, Bryce Harper, Aaron Judge, Ketel Marte, Shohei Ohtani, Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, Jose Ramirez, Kyle Schwarber, Corey Seager, Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker, Bobby Witt Jr, and Christian Yelich.
Only six of the 19 are right-handed hitters: Contreras, Diaz, Guerrero, Judge, Ozuna, Ramirez and Witt.
WC’s slugging percentage dropped in 2025 from where he was in 2024. But with a .447 slug in ‘25, Contreras was still 48 points above the league-average rate. And with an overall level of offense that was 27 percent above average, Contreras still has plenty of value – especially when he moved to first base and played above-average defense.
Oh, and this: as a Cardinal, Contreras has a .277 average, .450 slug and a wRC+ that’s 31 percent above league average offensively when hitting with runners in scoring position. Thirty of his 80 hits in RISP situations have gone for extra bases. And he’s knocked in 120 runs in 300 at-bats in RISP challenges. That’s a phenomenal RBI rate.
Final thing: when batting in those crucial high-leverage situations as a Cardinal, Contreras has performed 36 percent above league average offensively.
YOHEL POZO: The journeyman catcher – who for a time was out of work, homeless and living with his family in their car for a spell – became a heart-warming and uplifting story in 2025. And the timing was great because the Pozos were struggling financially due to a pile of medical bills after their small son suffered a stroke.
Summoned from the minors for big-league duty when Cardinals catcher Ivan Herrera went on the Injured List (twice) for lengthy periods of time, Pozo became an instant sensation. In his first 50 games for the Cardinals, Pozo hit .329, smashed his way to a .506 slugging percentage and popped timely hits including eight home runs. Yeah, Pozo was a LOT better than we anticipated. And he absolutely belongs on this list – even though this feel-good story ended with 3 hits in 37 at-bats (.081) in his final 17 games of the season.
MATT SVANSON: We can look at the standard stats and see that the rookie had an excellent 1.64 ERA in 60 and ⅓ innings. That was impressive, yes. But this instant-impact, hard-throwing righty was … spectacular? Is that the proper term? Maybe so.
According to the adjusted ERA metric at FanGraphs – which accounts for ballpark effects and league trends – Svanson was a blazing 53 percent above league average in his rookie-year performance. Yeah, so I think this qualifies as doing better than we thought.
How good was that? Among relievers that worked 60 innings last season, only four MLB relievers topped Svanson’s launch in 2025: Aroldis Chapman, Edwin Diaz, Abner Uribe and Andres Munoz. That’s pretty good – especially when we remember that John Mozeliak got Svanson from Toronto for Paul DeJong at the 2023 trade deadline. And Pauly lasted only 13 games for the Blue Jays before they dropped him.
JOSE FERMIN: This is an under-the-radar pick. And before I explain why Fermin was a lot more impressive offensively than most observers would have assumed, I’ll point out that I’m basing this on a Halloween candy sample size – you know, those mini Snickers bars.
Fermin put up some jolly good numbers in his 70 plate appearances over 30 games in 2025. He batted .283, had a .377 on-base rate, and slugged .417. Quality at-bats? Sure. Fermin had a high walk rate (11.4%) and a low 14.3% strikeout rate.
Fermin batted .385 after coming off the bench in a game. When hitting with runners in scoring position, Fermin went 5 for 13 (.385) with four walks and a 1.086 OPS – and delivered seven RBIs.
In 26 plate appearances with men on base, Fermin cranked seven hits in 21 at-bats (.333) with a 1.011 OPS and nine RBIs. And he kept the pressure on by walking five times with men already on base.
Defense? Not good. But when Fermin got a chance to play (not often) he really came through in a way that was special for a deep-bench player.
GORDON GRACEFFO: I have to admit something … I cringed when I looked at his 2025 earned-run average (6.28) in 43 innings last season. But then I noticed that the batting average on balls in play against him was a highly inflated .353. That was unfairly high, so bad luck was a factor. And when we peek at his fielding independent ERA of 2.93 it was a more accurate picture of his work. Graceffo could use more strikeouts, but he kept the walks down – and he kept the ball in the park, yielding only 0.4 home runs per nine innings.
KYLE LEAHY: The workhorse reliever had a strong ‘25 season, and I don’t think anyone overlooked his valuable performance and his big supply of innings. But as I mentioned in a column a couple of weeks ago, what stood out to me was Leahy’s 1.01 ERA when working two-plus innings in an appearance. That one floored me, and at that point I realized Leahy was even more of a baller than I perceived.
JO JO ROMERO: I wasn’t surprised to look back to reaffirm just how great this lefty was after a slow start to the season. Everything changed after he corrected a delivery flaw. And the “new” Romero was pretty special. I kept writing about it, writing about it, writing about it, talking about it, yapping about it…
And I was astonished by how long it took local media to finally recognize Romero’s newfound excellence. Seriously. How does that happen? This dude was working a lot; how could anyone miss the dramatic Romero turnaround? Unreal.
In his final 52 and ⅓ innings of the season Romero pitched to a superb 1.20 ERA, had 23 holds, collected eight saves, and failed in only one save opportunity. Romero had a 2.10 ERA as the closer after the Cardinals traded Ryan Helsley to the Mets. And Romero was actually a much better closer than Helsley, converting 89 percent of his save opps after the trade. Romero’s work included a 0.98 ERA and a perfect 5 for 5 in save attempts over his final 17 relief outings of the season.
Just a note before I go. I didn’t put Michael McGreevy on this list for a reason: yes, he did fine after finally getting a chance to join the rotation after the trade deadline. But McGreevy did get smacked around in his 11 starts, allowing 10 home runs in 62.2 innings. That inflated his fielding independent ERA to 4.78 over the 11 starts.
Thank you all for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie covered every Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STL Sports Central, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.